For instance, a few months ago I learned something new that has completely changed my life.
When the Chief Gardener watched me put my T-shirt on backwards for the third time, she pointed out the wash instruction labels are always stitched into the inside left of a shirt when facing the front.
My mum never told me this.
Neither did any of my school sports teachers or menswear shop assistants.
Now I can instantly slip on a T-shirt like a centre-court tennis pro with no fear of embarrassment or struggle.
I just look for the washing label and keep it to the left.
So I am still learning after all.
It’s not a Max Planck algebraic formula.
It’s how to put a on T-shirt properly.
Which is something far more useful to a struggling 70-year-old.
Now I automatically look for the washing label on T-shirts.
I have realised that despite years of champagne abuse, my brain is still growing, and I have succeeded in creating a new neural pathway.
Then I thought — why stop there?
We are all on a learning curve of some sort.
Even One Nation voters have to create new brain patterns to keep up with Pauline’s next thought bubble.
So a few weeks ago, I decided to take some guitar lessons.
After playing Streets of London for 55 years, I thought increasing my repertoire might also create new neural pathways, and I could then move on to more advanced skills like cross-stitch and cardiac surgery.
Because I believe in reaching for the sky, I told my guitar teacher I’d like to play like Jimi Hendrix, but he said I have to go back to the start and play scales to create finger memory.
Which is why I am now coaxing my fingers to move up and down and across six strings in time to a metronome with increasing speed.
Sometimes my fingers move in line 1, 2, 3 and 4. Or they might move in a different sequence — 1 and 3 and 2 and 4.
On top of this, I do yoga once a week, which teaches my body to move in ways I thought impossible — like lying down and crossing my legs then trying to put them over my head.
I can feel my skull about to burst with a huge roadmap of new neural pathways being created every day.
I either need a bigger head, or I might have to wear a space helmet to stop these vast new cranial pathways escaping into the real world.
I know what Elon Musk feels like now.
Mars is just the first stepping stone.
This morning I found myself trying to put my head through the arm-hole of a clean T-shirt.
I immediately stopped, held up the shirt and looked for the big hole.
That’s a new neural pathway right there.
John Lewis is a former journalist at The News.
